Freakshow Redux

by digby

Jane Hamsher writes, “Save Us from The Freakshow” but I think we’re going to have to save ourselves. It’s obvious that this ridiculous Larry Sinclair nonsense is being ginned up by right wing bottom feeders, just as the Gennifer Flowers freak show was back in the 90s. We can ignore it and pretend it doesn’t matter. Maybe we’ll get lucky. But I would guess, based upon the natural proclivities of the modern media, that this stuff is going to be covered once they find a hook. If Sinclair doesn’t stick they’ll find something else. And even if the media ignores it, the right wing bloggers certainly won’t.

The canary in the coal mine is what we are seeing all over the supermarket tabloids. This is fairly typical, from The Globe:

THERE’s trouble brewing in the Oprah Winfrey camp – and it has the talk show titan seeing red! Friends, fans and business associates are telling her to dump the Democratic presidential candidate before she’s caught up in the anti-American scandals rocking his campaign. Only in GLOBE, the explosive story that’s must-reading for every American.

And then there’s this truly noxious stuff:

It’s true that Bush had a few covers over the years, usually about an alleged return to the bottle. But this is the kind of thing we’re seeing all over the tabloids about Obama — a man who far too many people are going to get to know for the first time on these pages or while standing in line to buy a gallon of milk. They aren’t just saying he’s cheating on his wife or had a wild youth (although they are saying that.)That’s old hat by now and unlikely to make anyone think twice about a politician. (Certainly since a large number of right wingers have been exposed as hypocrites, it’s not as easy a charge to make hay with these days.) But with Obama, they’ve upped the ante. They are saying he is a traitor.

This is something we should be concerned about. I don’t know if it will turn any votes, but it’s likely to stoke the kind of opposition that will go all out to hinder and discredit him — and turn a very tidy profit doing it. This makes governance difficult, to say the least.

We can pretend it doesn’t matter. But we do so at our peril.

Update: From Think Progress: it looks like the press club has responded to the pressure of 7,500 petitioners and, at least, changed the title of the event from “The Truth About Obama” to “Larry Sinclair on Obama.” It’s a step in the right direction.

Update II: Also, read this comment to the post below from blogsphere resident expert on pushing back slime, Spocko.

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